Surrender is not a word people see as positive or noble.

Surrender and defeat are closely linked in my mind and other people’s minds. Surrender sounds fatalistic, a giving up. In our culture, fighting is noble, surrender is cowardly.

True surrender, I’ve learned in my own life, is something else.

I’m earning to see it differently, at least in a spiritual context.

For me, it doesn’t mean giving up any longer; it doesn’t mean failing to confront the challenges of life. It means accepting life rather than fighting it all the time.

The Amish surrender their fate to God. I surrender mine to life.

Eckhard Tolle and his writings challenged me to look at surrender differently some years ago.

Surrender, he preached,  is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life.

I have a friend who fell off his bicycle and broke his leg.

He will be recovering for a long time – months perhaps. This is a great shock to him, and he complains bitterly every day and all during the day about how difficult things are, how much pain he is in, how much hard work he has to do.

I empathize, he is suffering. But to me, he is fighting his life, not accepting it. He is surrendering to fear and frustration.

I recalled being rushed to the hospital seven years ago for my open heart surgery. I was beginning to explore the idea of radical acceptance then, and I had a few days to think about things as I lay in a hospital bed awaiting the surgery.

I decided to surrender to the process. The doctors said my complete healing could take up to six months, even a year. I resolved not to be surprised by pain and discomfort – this is an inevitable part of the process.

Complaining was pointless, I didn’t want to dump my fear and discomfort onto anyone else. It was my heart, my life.

I accepted the limitations I would face on driving and exercise for a while. Bitching about it would ease nothing.

I accepted that I wouldn’t feel great or normal for weeks, perhaps even months.

I remembered that to “surrender” in this context does not mean flight or retreat, quite the opposite. It means accepting the present moment unconditionally and without reservation.

It means giving up my ferocious – and losing –  struggles against what is rather than what I wished it was.

The real pain for me came from the wide gap between the rigid and unyielding expectations of my mind and what actually is the reality of life. The shrinks call it the” pain gap.”

I’ve lived long enough to learn that things go wrong. None of us are spared loss and struggle.

In fact, in life, things are as apt to go wrong as they are to be perfect and simple.

And joy and meaning often follow.

In our distracted and complex world, something goes awry almost all the time – computer glitches, password trouble, sick friends, dying dogs, insurance bills, minor or major health issues.

Surrender is something I practice at difficult times.

For me, this has eliminated or sharply reduced pain and sorrow, and grievance. Self-pity was something I wanted to give up and let go of.

It has also diminished fear and anxiety. I accept what I can’t make disappear.

This surrender helped me understand how to grieve for people, as well as my dogs.

Death is a part of life; fighting it is destructive and futile.

Dogs don’t live as long as I have lived or as other people live.

To love a dog is to know grief; if I can’t handle the grief, I ought to reconsider having a dog.

Losing people is more complex, but it needn’t be as shocking and unexpected as it is for many people.

I can’t imagine the pain of losing Maria or of her losing me, but I know one or the other is certain to happen; it is what life is, in great part, it is what life is really all about.

Everyone has troubles, every0ne has it worse than I do.

I accepted that my recovery from heart surgery would take some and when I woke up in the morning, I wasn’t stunned to learn that my chest hurt from the incisions.

This has followed through with the lesser surgeries I’ve had this year.

The doctors and nurses keep telling me my attitude is healthy, different, positive. I wasn’t sure at first what they were talking about.

They tell me attitude is essential to healing, and they tell me my attitude is especially positive.

I am learning to surrender to life.

I ask myself, what did I expect would happen? That my life would be free of pain and difficulty?

Was this pain the same as something like cancer? Is that something I could surrender to? I don’t know the answer to that; pain and suffering come on many different levels and in many different ways.

I made a point of looking beyond the pain; this was the path to recovery.

My healing went quickly, much faster than I expected.

I had the feeling my surrendering to the process helped my recovery. My doctor said she thought that was true. Also, she commented on my attitude more than once.

Surrender, then, is not about accepting a sad or painful situation.

I don’t deceive myself into thinking everything is fine.

This idea of surrender and acceptance asks me to focus and narrow my attention down to the present moment without labeling it in any way. There is no judgment of the now, no shock and lament. There is no resistance, no emotional negativity.

I never speak poorly of my life. I guard against feeling sorry for myself.

Worry and pity arise out of anger, despair and frustration. Taking action and positively accepting reality is very different.

This idea is softening, changing, and enriching my life. I mean to keep working on it.